Alistair MacLeod•b.1936 Saskatchewan

•son of Cape Bretoners

•returned to Cape Breton as a young boy

•grew up in close-knit community

•worked in mining, fishing, logging

•after high school attended St. Francis Xavier University

•received Masters degree from U.N.B.

•received doctorate from Notre Dame

•currently teaches English and creative writing at University of Windsor

•mainly writes short stories

•first novel No Great Mischief won IMPAC Dublin Literary Award 2001

Alistair MacLeod•considered one of the most accomplished prose writers in Canada

•spotlights Gaelic heritage and rural values of descendants of Highland Scots who settled in Maritimes

•relates to the physical, psychological, and emotional rigors experienced by mining and fishing communities of Nova Scotia

•Depicts struggles with harsh natural environments and occupational hazards

•favors first-person narratives

•emphasizes the power of the past to affect the present

•depicts educated descendants of Scottish-Canadian miners and fishermen who either abandon their impoverished homes in Nova Scotia for the modern mainland, or having become alienated in their new urban surroundings, return to their forsaken families and Gaelic traditions

“Our first responsibility is to ourselves and to our goals. Without fulfilling our dreams we are doomed to a life of frustration and longing”